And the guy told us "VERY FAAAARRRR".
He told us so called the direction and we stupidly had faith in him.
We drove north.
And north.
And north.
And we lost the signals on our phones.
And we entered the jungle.
We panicked but we stayed cool and told ourselves that we were driving towards the correct direction.
Until it was 2 hours and we did not see any sign pointing to Bedugul.
We found a small shop. We stopped. We asked.
The owner told us that we took the wrong route as the new road cutting through the woods and mountains had completed and we should have taken the shortcut. By taking this particular road, we travelled to the very north of the island before turning back south to reach Bedugul and Pura Ulun Danu.
My knee turned jelly all of a sudden.
We wasted our time!
Oh no.
But we had no choice but to follow the road and drove further north till we entered Singaraja.
Singaraja is a town in Buleleng, the furthest north area in Bali. It is a normal town with small roads and low rise shophouses. There are no fancy buildings, no fancy advertisement, no much cosmetics on the town.
When I saw the watch, I realized it was later than 4:00pm and I thought about all of them who had yet to have lunch and I suggested to get to Warung Bambu Pemaron, which I read as one of the best restaurants in Buleleng.
But everybody was so tired and got agitated so easily. I was thinking about them and they just complained that we should not have wasted our time driving further into the town. We should have just turned back south. And blah blah blah.
Anyway, bro was driving towards the restaurant so we had no choice but to bear with it.
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| The greenery behind Warung Bambu Pemaron |
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| Nobody was in the mood for eating so we just ordered three plates of fried rice that cost us IDR 231,000 (~SGD 25) |
The journey from Singaraja to Bedugul was quite smooth except for a time we were trapped in a traffic jam. We reached Bedugul around sunset and we straightaway rushed to the lake side after paying the entrance fee of IDR 15,000 (~SGD 1.6) per pax.
Lake Bedugul or Beratan is located in Tabanan at the high ground causing this place to have cooling weather all the time. By the side of the lake, there is a temple called Pura Ulun Danu. Pura Ulun Danu was built by the same king in Mengwi that built Pura Taman Ayun.
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| Finally! |
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| Walkway into Pura Ulun Danu |
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| Magnificent, yes? |
And nowadays, Pura Ulun Danu gets more popularity because it is featured on one of Indonesian notes.
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| Yessss, see? |
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| And we finally could smile |
We could only take a few photos before it turned too dark. We then continued our journey to Ubud, where we would spend the night.
We reached Ubud at around 8:30pm. It was dark but the town had yet to sleep. Ubud is a popular small town in Bali since it was featured in "Eat, Pray, Love". In the movie, Julia Roberts rode her bicycle along the small road by the side of paddy terrace. Ubud since then grabbed its popularity as a tranquil place to enjoy peace.
Ubud is actually very rich in arts. A lot of artists in Bali came from Ubud. You can find a lot of galleries selling paintings and stuffs here.
We decided to try Bebek Bengil or Dirty Duck Dinner, a restaurant specialised in duck dishes in Ubud. We easily found the place and parked at a big parking area behind the restaurant.
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| The sign board |
The restaurant is huuuuggeeee with a lot of Balinese huts for the guests to sit and enjoy the cooling weather. So we sat ourselves at one of the hut and order.
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| Grilled duck with Balinese sauce. The sauce is peanut sauce with mixture of something else. It is not spicy. |
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| Bebek Pelalah. Crispy duck served with tomato chilli sauce. I love the chili and I love the duck. |
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| The famous original crispy duck. The duck is soooo crispy and nice! |
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| All come with more chilli sauce for us to choose |
We settled our bill of IDR 1,048,000 (~SGD 110) and walked out of the restaurant. Before we reached the door, a staff approached us to get our car key. He then took the car for us and handed the car at the door. It was part of their service and it was amazing!
Driving off and trying to find the villa that we booked for the night, we were a bit frustrated because we took the wrong way a few times and kept calling the villa manager. The manager then sent one of his staff to meet us at one point and bring us in.
To our surprise, the villa was not accessible by car. We were told to park at one spot and walk in the dark into the villa compound. To complete the misery, it was raining quite heavily.
Mom already felt cheated and said that the villa would be terrible. How come a villa had no car access???
But it's Bali and it's Ubud. I still held my faith.
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| The sign of the villa |
It was a three-room villa and it was newly built and it was amazing and it felt like finding a heaven after a hard painful life.
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| The comfy bed |
To my surprise again, they gave us a plate of sandwich as welcome gift. How sweet.
And that night, we slept soundly.
Love is in the air,
Little Feet
Next Post - Enjoying Paradise in Ubud
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